Psychologists and I have an uneasy truce; they insist I’m unbalanced, I mention they’re on the third wife and none of their kids are speaking to them, neither of us wins, and both sides retire undeterred.

The rest of you don’t get off so easily, “angling psychology” is big business now, and the competitive fisherman needs a personal sports psychologist to hone that predation instinct. There’s no shame in treatment anymore, a cursory examination of your fly box yields precious insight into all your angling foibles, and the medical community will have you fixed up in no time.

Unbridled expressions of raw passion diminish our capacity to concentrate, focus on, and precisely execute complex tasks. At a practical level, emotional outbursts during a tournament waste valuable fishing time.

I disagree, swearing personalizes the angling experience, an amateur can waste valuable time chaining together a lucid string of profanity, whereas the professional has most of his remarks memorized, a practiced delivery allows him to focus on killing this fish, rather than everything within earshot.

Several tournament fishermen start the day by doing physical stretching exercises, a practice common in most athletic events. Top athletes in other sports also have an individualized set of mental exercises they use regularly.

The Doc is dead right, stretching exercises are important both before and after fishing; my routine stretches the speed limit to get there, a waistline-stretching orgy of salted pigflesh and eggs when close, and the post-fishing ritual of stretching the boundaries of truth and falsehood to anyone within range.

…you may see yourself as a fast-paced, intuitive fisherman. Many successful competitors are. However, a sports psychologist could help you recognize how and when you might carry these tendencies to extremes and show careless, impulsive, overly spontaneous behaviors that actually diminish effectiveness.

While intuition suggests “the rose is worn in front,”  your preference for female underwear may be the reason you only fish dry flies, daylighting this to a caring sports psychologist will free you of elitist tendencies and enrich your fishing experience. Impulsive acts can be productive, but not while wading or drinking.

I’m comfortable with my skewed view of the world, and would as soon skip the entire séance as it cuts into fishing time. When my feeble skills start to wane I’ll pay a visit to BALCO Labs and tell them Barry sent me.

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